Chaney senior Jason Hewlett commits to the University of Michigan

At some schools, there's a certain aura that surrounds the football program.

For Chaney senior Jason Hewlett, that sensation engulfed him the first time he trotted into Michigan Stadium. Now, after committing to play in Ann Arbor for the Wolverines in recent weeks, the Cowboys standout is ready to have his long road pay dividends.

"It was all cool people, they were all chill, they all kept it real with me and I mess with that," Hewlett said. "The recent success helped a lot, but they have the most wins in college football history right now, they almost have 1,000 and I wanted to be a part of that 1,000 club. Something about when I first got up there made me get excited, maybe it was just the surroundings, and now I see everything with Michigan.

"I see all the great fans and stuff. Their stadium is huge, so when I saw all of the people, I was like, yeah, I can see myself playing here."

Heading into the College Football Playoff later this month, the Wolverines have an all-time mark of 989-352-36 according to official NCAA records. The iconic striped winged helmet comes with a certain expectation, but many from the Mahoning Valley have donned the maize and blue in years past.

More recently, you have the likes of De'Veon Smith (Howland) or Fitzgerald Toussaint and Isiah Bell from Liberty in addition to Warren G. Harding grads Mario Manningham and Prescott Burgess.

Historically, Michigan has also fielded Ed Muransky (Cardinal Mooney), Jerry Diorio (Cardinal Mooney), Ed Moore (Cardinal Mooney), Mike Trgovac (Austintown-Fitch), Bob Penska (Niles), Dick Reindfuss (Niles), Rich Sygar (Niles), and John Lott (Brookfield), among others.

To get to this point though, Hewlett has gone through a long journey.

It started when Chaney's football program was revived in 2019 following a several-year hiatus. Hewlett was on that original roster a handful of seasons ago but knew that the Cowboys had a great tradition that he wanted to find himself entrenched in.

"It's very great because Chaney was shut down so long, people don't know the old people that went to Chaney that did great things," Hewlett said. "So I'm one of the first people from when Chaney came back that went to a big school like Michigan. It's showing the kids that you can stay in an inner-city school and still be great and still go D-1.

"A lot of guys look up to me, a lot of guys want to come to Chaney because of it, so it's very exciting to see what Chaney is going to do in the future and see all of the other players that are going to come out and do great things."

This past fall, the 6-foot-4, 210-pound linebacker posted 59 tackles this season with nine going for a loss. He also tallied a trio of interceptions, a pair of sacks, three forced fumbles, and two touchdowns on defense and special teams.

Offensively, he caught 14 passes for 317 yards and three touchdowns. Of those three scores, the most emotional was an opening night 58-yard trip to the end zone on a pass from Matt Jones at Poland.

Hewlett dropped to the turf and said a prayer, it was his first time earning six since a season-ending broken fibula derailed his junior campaign in the first quarter of the first game.

Chaney coach Seth Antram has been around since the Cowboys fielded a non-varsity squad back in 2018, minus the 2021 season when he led the Boardman program.

Antram has coached Hewlett for many years, but that score on a Thursday night at Dave Pavlansky Field represented something more.

"Anytime there's an injury, there's a little mental hump to get over coming back, and day one of contact, he was there, but that was definitely an extra stride to get in the end zone game one," Antram said. "He was heading in the same direction he was, just more than the on-the-field stuff, obviously. He's a gifted athlete and a gifted football player, but just taking more strides in that leadership role, which is hard to do when you weren't on the field with some of those guys his junior year.

"To step up into that leadership role and continue to grow as a leader, we played a tough schedule with a lot of adversity, and he was one of our main guys that the team leaned on. The coaches gave responsibility to him to guide us through that, and he did a heckuva job doing that."

The Cowboys posted a record of 10-2 this season, including a 35-21 playoff win over Alliance. It was the most regular season wins Chaney posted since 2003, and their first 10-win campaign since 2000.

Hewlett was previously committed to Cincinnati and had offers on the table from Kentucky, Boston College, and West Virginia, among others.

Currently, former Chaney standout Clive Wilson suits up for Boston College and Hewlett's teammate DJ Waller is choosing between Michigan and Kentucky later this month.

Learning how to really coach up different players became a focal point for Hewlett during his final high school season.

"Just seeing what different guys go hard for, like some guys don't like getting yelled at, some guys do, so just seeing people and seeing how they react to different things. You just have to observe and it's really based on the people," Hewlett said. "The team I had this year, we were all brothers, we all hang with each other off the field, so it made it a lot easier on the field to communicate with them."

When it all boils down to it, Hewlett has picked up plenty of advice over the years. When he was younger, he looked up to his older brother Jaylen and attended his high school games at Cardinal Mooney and later made trips to Stambaugh Stadium to see his brother play for Youngstown State.

Jason knew then that he wanted to play on Saturdays and his brother gifted him a key piece of advice that he still likes to pass on to this day. Jason said he simply told him to always be himself and work harder than anyone else on the football field.

Now, Jason is looking to do that on the next step of his journey at Michigan and still add to his legacy back home.